


St. Nicholas Soon Will be Here

by Drunken Space Seraphim (Kousaiga)



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen, Pre-MGS3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1827460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kousaiga/pseuds/Drunken%20Space%20Seraphim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Boss has taken on a young Naked Snake as her apprentice, and discovers one of his quirks in an interesting way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	St. Nicholas Soon Will be Here

_Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap..._

The sound of Joy's pen hitting the wooden desk she was sitting at filled the room. She had been staring at the pile of documents laid out in front of her for some time but had made no headway in the past hour. She mostly found herself looking out the window at the clear night sky. The stars shown brightly, and it was perfect for Christmas Eve. Joy looked over to the clock on her desk. 11:15 PM. It wouldn't be Christmas Eve much longer.

Deciding that she had been sitting for long enough Joy stood up and made her way out into the hallway. As she strolled down the drafty hallway she noted that all was quiet. Too quiet. Since it was Christmas Eve she had dismissed John from his duties early in spirit of the holiday. Normally, John was your normal rowdy teenager once he was allowed to relax. Well, “rowdy” may have been an understatement. Joy has had to dig John out of more than a few instances of “teenage tomfoolery” in the year that they had been working together.

She could see light coming from the living room and quickened her pace. John had been making a commotion all afternoon. Joy could hear him running in and out of rooms throughout the entire house, the clattering of objects in the kitchen, and the occasional curse word. It took all of her patience to not to come out of her office and knock him flat on his ass for making so much noise, but she had convinced herself that the overdue paperwork was more important. _She had somehow convinced herself the John could behave for a couple of hours on his own._

Upon reaching the living room Joy gasped as she had just stopped short of triggering a trip wire. Her jaw went slack as she surveyed the disaster area that was her living room. Elaborate traps and nets covered the entire room that increased the closer they got to the Christmas tree and fireplace. Sitting on top of a chest next to the window was John wearing the most hideous holiday pajamas she's ever seen. John's head was leaning against the window looking up at the sky, but Joy could see the fatigue in his eyes. John hadn't noticed her yet, so she stood there and waited. It was only about another minute until John's eyes closed for more than two seconds.

“JACK!” Joy screamed into the silent room. John's entire body jolted awake along with a shout of his own and pulled on the string he had been holding the entire time. A net fell from the ceiling in front of the fireplace. When realizing he had not captured his target he looked around the room in bewilderment. His eyes locked with Joy's and he froze.

“What... the _hell_ is this, Jack?!” Joy asked as she angrily gestured to all of the traps.

“Uh... I- I, um,” John stuttered at first before finding his confidence, “I'm going to capture Santa Claus.” Joy just stood that and stared at him with a blank expression. She took a deep breath before speaking again.

“And what do you plan on doing IF you capture him?”

“Well... interrogate him, of course! Find out where his workshop is, how he manufactures and transports that many different toys, and most importantly find out his secret of flight!”

Joy wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She had always felt that there was something off with this child, but now she knew. She took another deep breath and collected her thoughts.

“You know, Santa sees you when your sleeping and knows when you're awake. You should know that he isn't going to stop here if you're still up. And don't you think he knows you've set up an ambush for him?” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. John didn't say anything, and she knew she had him. That's when she launched herself forward, expertly dodging off the traps. John's sleepy brain didn't have time to react before he was pulled off the chest and into a hold. She wasn't rough with him. Just enough force was used to keep him from getting away and hurting himself in his own traps.

“Come on, Jack. It's time for bed.” she said tiredly and began pushing the protesting teenager toward his room. John offered little resistance as he was directed into his room and got under the covers of his bed as Joy stood by the door. She wondered where he had even found such loud pajamas but thought that answer could wait until tomorrow.

“What I want to know the most is...” John murmured before Joy could shut the door, “I want to know if there's a way I can get off the naughty list.” Joy froze.

“...What makes you think you're on the naughty list?” she finally responded. Sure, John could be a hellion at times, but she would have never considered him being a bad person.

“Santa hasn't left me anything the past couple of years.” John said quietly.

“Don't you think that maybe you're too old for Santa to bring you toys?” she responded.

“I've killed people.” There was a great sadness in his tone. Was he crying? She couldn't see his face anymore because John had tilted it away from her.

Joy was suddenly reminded of the fact that John was a highly trained soldier that had seen the ugliest side of war. All this silliness made it seem as if they were somewhat of a normal family even if it was just for a few moments. It seemed like an eternity before she spoke.

“There is more to good and bad than you think. Someday you'll realize that. Good night, Jack.” she said and turned off the light. John didn't respond. She let out a small sigh as she closed the door.

It took 45 minutes for Joy to completely disarm and clean the living room of John's handiwork. Picking up the last bits of string she spotted a plate of cookies placed on the mantle with a slip of paper reading “For Santa”. They were homemade right down to the design. There was a grenade, a handgun, and a knife all decorated with red and green frosting with Christmas tree sprinkles. She was actually impressed. Without thinking she took a bite out of the grenade cookie. She immediately grabbed a tissue and spit it out. John had used salt instead of sugar.

“He was never much help in the kitchen,” Joy mumbled as she picked up the plate and walked over to a trash can, but she hesitated before dumping the cookies in. Instead, she turned around and and placed them on the coffee table. She briefly looked toward the kitchen before deciding that she didn't want to see how bad the mess was until tomorrow. Instead, she headed back down the hallway to her office.

She approached her desk and opened the top drawer. Inside were two neatly wrapped gifts. The one wrapped in green was a box of John's favorite candies and the one wrapped in red was a high quality hunting knife. It had some ornamental designs on it but nothing that got in the way of it's function. Joy took out the red gift. She then took a piece of paper and cut out a tag. Using her fanciest handwriting she wrote “From Santa” onto the tag and attached it to the gift. Taking the gift back with her into the living room she placed it under the tree with a smile. Feeling satisfied with her decision she finally headed off to bed. John was really too old to be believing in Santa, but she didn't see why she had to crush all of his childhood innocence now. After all, the battlefield will do that without her help.

 


End file.
